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First full week of 2019 is almost in the books and friends, I don’t know about you, but I was beyond ready to feel like lighting 2018 on fire and forgetting it took place. As well as 2017, 2016 and 2015.

All of 2018 wasn’t awful in the slightest but I’m more than thrilled to shed the layer another year added. Like an exfoliation of sorts. Looking back, it seemed like last year was equivalent to a decade with all of the political chaos, senseless gun violence, devastating hurricanes and wild fires, the staggering realization of where America truly stands on rape culture and victim blaming, learning that the environment is most certainly going to say “fuck you” to humans in about 50 years, shutting down the government, forcing peeps to work without pay, who most likely already live paycheck to paycheck over some fucking dumbass wall (get it the fuck together politicians) – and that’s just the non-personal junk.

We made it! Art by the ever kick ass Hannah Daisy of @makedaisychains.

Yet, there was some sort of seismic shift that took place toward the end of the year after I twirled fell and gave myself a severe concussion (what I mindlessly refer to as a coma…I mean, they both start with the letter c). Resting my brain and body was not only what the doctor ordered, it was what my mind and spirit also needed. Almost three years after Rapegate, I was back in the celebratory saddle and not.a.fucking.thing. was going to stand in my way.

Holiday spirits were high and so very not dry.

Holla!day fun with the girls.

Christmas craziness with my Iowa twins.

Christmas cookies for Kris Kringle.

Christmas cocktails helped us jingle.

I have enough merriment to carry me and you through this entire new year.

Soon enough it was time to watch that famous ball drop, signifying whatever you want to call it. A fresh start, new chapter, another not going to follow any resolutions again, new year, new you bullshit. Aside from The Pussy Posse, a quiet night in with First Mate was the way to commence the out with the old, in with the new shenanigans.

First Mate with her fizz.

Nothing short of a klutz on my feet, I did my best to spoil our snacks before the evening even started. My leopard couch still smells like one big, raw shrimp – and the pussies love it.

Festive fail.

So we did what any gals would and filled up on champs instead (like we would have done anyhow).

Mind eraser.

The problem wasn’t with our selfie taking skills, of course. It was trying to get the fucking bottle of bubbly open (why can’t my cats get off their furry asses and help?!).

Once we popped the top, the champs flowed, my 2018 skin was shed and we did what all party animals do. We went to bed.

The first day of 2019 was also the very last game of my beloved Hawkeyes football season. My team was playing Mrs. America’s Mississippi State Bulldogs and Iowa was the underdog.

Last game of the season!

Dada CBXB and I were hoping to score a touchdown, hopeful our Hawks wouldn’t get blown out. Not only did they score multiple times, enabling our family tradition touchdown shots, they also WON THE GAME! Final score was 27-22. The first day of 2019 was not a horrible one in the slightest.

W-I-N!

Cheers to a first week of freshness and hoping the spark stays alive in all of us this year.

Attitudes are the shit and I burst onto this planet with one in tow. I was born with the confident “I can do anything” stance somehow and my folks continued to nurture that temperament as I grew up. The only thing they cautioned me on was to not get married until I was at least 25 (they may be wishing they’d sung a different tune as I’m a candle lovin’ lady with four pussies, a chug and would now be considered an ‘old maid’ in a different era). Before Rapegate, there was never an issue with me adjusting my attitude – being able to kick my own ass back into shape as needed.

Lately I’ve been exceedingly inundated with cheerful “I’m thankful for…” countdowns, “reasons for merriment,” and “I resolve to…” positive posts on social media. Going into the holiday season, I struggled to gear up for anything festive – and I hated my attitude. As some of us were excited to be knee deep in gravy for a solid two months, I was hoping this holiday season didn’t linger as long as my 21st birthday hangover.

I may or may not have drunk dialed my boyfriend’s mother at 3am. She answered.

Thing is, I never thought I would fall into latter category, as typically on America’s birthday, I’m salivating like Dracula does over a neck – thisclose to getting my Halloween décor out on the fifth of July. But mentally for the past two years, it’s been a monstrous war inside of my skull, emotions swinging back and forth more extremely than POTUS’s hourly tweets. Not just regarding holiday cheer but being cheery about life in general. Oh Rapegate, thank you for PTSD, adjustment disorder, severe stress, insomnia, panic attacks and all of the insecurities I gained at your reckoning.

Previous multi-seasonal head cheerleader.

In my experience, PTSD (can go fuck itself) is exhausting – not only mentally but physically as well. I’m constantly on edge, have nightmares, difficulty staying asleep, experience major loss of interest in activities I used to love the fuck out of and feel ultra-guilty about “letting” myself be raped (how fucked up is that feeling?). Accompanying these symptoms are feelings of alienation and self-inflicted detachment from friends, family and my old self. Problem is, I’m having trouble kicking my own attitude back into shape and I loathe being out of control of my emotions (so you can imagine how comfortable the last 23 months have been for me).

I think I’ll just stay in bed and wallow.

With mental issues, one can rationally know how lucky they are (or know what happened to them isn’t their fault)– no matter what bad shit has happened to them – or people they love. With this being the first holiday season without Aunt Crazy Pants and the fur ball love of my life, Ted, grief has also been a constant companion even though there are crazy fun memories of hilarity, hijinks, pee-your-pants fun to fall back on. The heaviness of grief crashes like tsunami waves, compounding the sense of loss I carry with me daily due to my personal trauma. I can almost feel my heart hardening at times.

Miss you something crazy.

Miss you something terrible.

Thing is, it super sucks because I missed my old holiday pukes all over the place self (and I mean all over – the mini manse, my office, fucking reindeer antlers on my car, Christmas underwear, socks, sweaters (that others might wear to an ugly sweater Christmas party I wear on the December regular), adorning Santa hats like they’re simply a part of my noggin, blasting holiday music from my car like I’m Santa himself, watching fa-la-la-la-la Lifetime movies that are so full of cheesiness, I want to kick my own ass for loving them).

Christmas Gaudy Queen of yesteryears.

In therapy, I’m tits high into the thick of processing the act – the moment of my rape and my feelings (ew) – while also constantly reminded, triggered, (whatever you wish to call it), daily by the super cool humans who apparently never learned fucking body basics in kindergarten. Thursday afternoons I see my own personal super hero, Sheila, and as she guides me toward a semblance of my old self, sessions almost always leave me with an emotional hangover that can last days. The mental, emotional and physical fatigue I fight daily, barely leaves me any energy to gussy up for work, so the thought of getting in any kind of holiday spirit was simply draining.

I woke up like this. And just want to go to work like this.

But I’m at a point where I must ban myself from a weekend full of bed lingering when I’m not trying to be social (stepping out of my mini manse and Dalts bubble little by little). I forced myself to get Halloween decorations out to the max because I hadn’t for two years. The fucking nerve of me.

There’s a glimpse of my old holiday mistress.

So, too, it is time to get in the motherfucking thankful, celebrate everything, CBXB spirit again YEAR-ROUND. Period.

When Dada CBXB and I were watching the Iowa Hawkeyes win their first bowl game in four years (yeehaw!) and he suggested I keep my Christmas tree up a little longer because it looked so pretty. (Side note – my buddy Camo insisted that I put my worldly pink, sparkly possession up and almost forced the ornaments on the fucking thing himself – and I’m glad he did).

Once the goddamn thing was up, I couldn’t help but be excited about turning the lights on when I got home from work. I also raced home every evening to see if anyone from my pussy posse knocked the pink tinseled delight over (remained in tact all season) being that this was their first experience with an actual Christmas tree. Turns out, they just like to sit underneath it and stare up at the lights, much like their mother.

Hello Gorgeous.

Speaking of moms, mine suggested that if I still had mine up, I should decorate it with Valentine’s attire. And just like that – I had an Oprah AHA! moment.

So, there you have it. I’m keeping my tree up all 2018 in celebration of celebrating.

Getting my ass back into the habit of loving everything about any little out-of-the ordinary thing of the day/week/month/year. If you visit the mini manse, best bring me something to hang on the pink tinsel (yes, mini bottles of Captain Morgan count).

I have a sparkly army – and if you’re reading, you’re a part of it – who has done nothing but encourage me every step of the goddamn way. Via comments. Messages. Snail mail. Phone calls.

Just minor digit change from last year.

I rang in the new year with reminders that I’m facing nothing alone sent to me from all over the world – here’s a sample of my faves:

I even wore armour sent by HJ and CC by way of Denver, CO (and no I wasn’t tipped and yes I was pissed no one tried all night).

I have loathed almost every.single.second of this year that instead of an advent calendar counting down the days to my typically fave day of the year – Christmas (I mean, second to my birthday of course), I’m counting the days (30), hours (720), minutes (how do I compute this?) and seconds (for real, I can’t do math that well) and milliseconds (who can help me out here?).

Like really, really, really, really hate you 2016.

This year did start off on a fabulous high-heeled foot with smiles, champagne and high hopes of a bright and shiny new year.

But somehow, this year just took a big dump on almost everyone I know.

For me the sparkle of 2016 lasted about 24 hours. Family drama involving cops, divorce, death of a young friend, bad shit happening to a good person (that would be moi), and still on the hunt for a job – all squeezed in on or before January 27, 2016.

How can this be happening already?!

If someone would have told me what the next 11 months entailed, I would have punched myself in the face, possibly crawled into an oven set to broil or figured out how to construct a time machine into the future (although I would need help with the dimensions portion of this project due to the aforementioned horrible math skills).

Fuuuuuuuck.

So, here’s the kick off to my Fuck Off 2016 countdown to better days for everyone I know ahead.

Fuck you for making me feel ashamed of myself to which was no fault of my own.

Fuck you for a culture of victim ignoring, shaming, and turning the other cheek when convenient.

Fuck you for taking the happy, the uncompromising confidence, the pride, the sparkle, the light, the love out of a girl who has never known any different.

Fuck you for taking away my ability to give a rat’s ass about my appearance to the outside world.

No really, fuck you. I mean me in no make-up in public….I think it’s been since 7th grade.

Fuck you for the seven months of sleepless nights on my leopard couch because being alone with my thoughts became unbearable due to an act on one single night.

Fuck you for the lasting post traumatic stress disorder, severe adjustment disorder and extremely delayed response to that event I’ve been trying to cope with over the last 11 months.

Fuck you for the pile of emotions that creep and sneak and fall from the sky at unexpected moments that are bigger than the goddamn mountain of laundry I avoid doing.

Fuck you for making my cortisol levels soar, my energy plummet, allowing my anxiety take over, laziness to kick in, sleeplessness be a constant and for making my diet consist of mainly Pepto Bismol, Aleve and carbohydrates.

Fuck you for taking away my excitement for my most wonderful time of the year…celebrating any and everything.

Fuck you for the Halloween fail.

Fuck you for the sucking the Christmas spirit out of my soul (except my Clark Griswold glass, of course).

My gift to 2016.

Fuck you for the lonely feeling of fight – but the fierce (while faint) is still in me and ready to kick some ass.

Oh 2016…

And so, the countdown for me, for you, for the upside down world we live in at the moment is on. I say we commit to a bottle of bubbly per Fuck You 2016 countdown day.

You know those years that seem to fly by, where you find yourself in disbelief that it’s time to ring in a new one? Well, 2015 wasn’t one of those for me. It felt that every 24 hours might as well be a 24 year period. Of course there were good days – and even weeks. But bad juju was most definitely in my corner at almost every turn.

Everything I touched turned to shit.

It wasn’t any one thing but a slow build up of moments and major life losses that can’t be undone. My immediate family has been turned upside down, as I’ve stood by as a mere spectator with no ability to change the outcome. I lost a few friends early this year for unexplained reasons (a lawsuit was even threatened…and I’m not even on any Real Housewife of Bravo program!) my Gma passed away from a quick illness in June, I suddenly lost my two year old pussy New Cat in July and the fur ball love of my life Ted fell seriously ill unexpectedly in August (and thankfully is on the mend after what a year of in state college tuition would cost – but he’s SO worth it, ya dig?).

His Royal Highness, the ever dramatic Tedstar, who spent two weeks in a pet hospital ICU (mostly because he refused to eat and take a shit, therefore stalling his release back to the mini manse).

Pissed the vet didn’t have a pink wrap.

In 2015 I also found myself being taken advantage of in personal ways – you know when you’re the emotional stability or constant support for someone and then they become ghosts when the favor is needed in return?

Ghost this.

In my professional life, it’s been stunning to find out where I really stood with close friends and colleagues over the last six months. Two weeks ago I found myself divorcing the company I thought I would be with for the remainder of my working years.

Not a situation that bloody Marys and Tylenol can’t fix.

Over the past three months, I’ve been called names…loving and thoughtful names such as “catty, scowly faced, bitchy” and my personal favorite, “a fucking whore,” all by folks I thought cared/liked/loved me. (Truth – I can be bitchy when a situation arises where that trait is needed.)

But you know…haters can suck it.

Or I’ll cut a bitch.

I’ve arrived at a point (and thankfully it’s the last day of the year) where nothing could really surprise me and I am just over it. Therefore, I have been wearing my feelings on my phone sleeve.

Seems appropriate, yes?

But with a new year just hours away, I’m excited for the feeling of a fresh beginning in many areas of my life. And, while this year will go down in the books as one I never want to repeat, it’s shown me the resilience that life requires, the humor one must keep to be able to laugh at the most ridiculous of situations and thankfulness for those who truly love me for being me. Classiness and all.

Love me, love my trashiness.

So to the family, friends, fellow bloggers, readers, acquaintances and co-workers who’ve been around this year – I thank you from the bottom of my heart. 2016, I’m ready for you full-bore.